1. It was not purgatory. Purgatory is temporary punishment while you wait out being able to enter heaven. You are destined for heaven but you have to in essence serve time for your sins. The reason I don't think that's what it was is the characters were making decisions and acting out their lives. Some ended up making decisions that took them away from ultimate redemption, i.e. they were not destined to go to heaven. It was in the end a story of redemption, which I figured early on but wasn't sure how it was playing out. With the ending it all makes sense.
2. It was not in Jack's mind. I think the plane flying over at the end made it clear it wasn't all a figment of Jack's imagination while he was laying there dying after the plane crash the first time.
3. So with that basis here are my major themes - redemption, internal struggle, and community. Stefanie and I determined this in our 4 1/2 hour drive to Jacksonville this morning...yes we talked about LOST the entire way! Let's take it one at a time.
3a. Redemption: Every character had a mess of a life before being on the island. Jacob pointed that out at the fireside chat. He brought them there because they were 'lost' in life. The island gave them a chance for redemption and in the process a way to overcome their greatest insecurity on the island. Some characters (ex. Locke, Jack, Claire) took it, some characters (ex. Michael, Ana Lucia, Ben) did not. Stefanie and I thought through as many of the characters as we could - here are a few....Jack's biggest issue was letting things go - the island forced him to learn how to let others help him and also how to act, but not take things into his control. Sawyer's biggest issue was blaming himself - he blamed himself for his parents death, for Juliet's death, for Jin and Sun's death - eventually he came to the point where he could accept that bad decisions were made but it wasn't his fault. Hurley's biggest issue was believing in himself - the island and the people with him taught him how to do this, down to the last thing Jack said to him was that he believed in him. Now, let's look at some people who chose not to accept the redemption offered. Ana Lucia seemed as if she had just come to grips with her life and then was shot by Michael. I remember wondering if she had redemption in the end, but based on the finale what I think happened was she decided not to accept it, she was offered it, saw she needed it but didn't accept. Michael and Ben both acted out of self interest - making decisions based on their own needs regardless of how it impacted those around them. Which brings me to...
3b. Community: Every character that accepted redemption started making decisions for the best of the group, rather than for their own personal gain. Even if it was just for the best or one or two other people, it wasn't for their own personal benefit. Christian kind of summed it up by saying that they built the church together. They made it possible because they relied on each other -hearken back to Jack's statement from season 1 - live together, die alone. Each of them had to make decisions to act for the best of the group or none of them could have saved the island because none of them could have done it alone. They had to learn how to ask for help from others, but at the same time they each had to accept their own personal responsibility to the group.
3c. Internal Struggle: We determined that what linked the two realities as well as what linked the redemption and the need for community was the internal struggle the characters went through. I haven't yet decided yet which reality is real, and I actually think they left that unanswered on purpose (it is reason that I think the finale was brilliant it answered just enough questions to make sense, but not enough to make it not true to the show). So, I'm going to actually leave this one up to Stefanie who wrote a brilliant bit of summary on this portion of our theory: "Lost was about decisions being made and whether they were the right ones to lead a happy life. Each character has one significant decision in his/her life that lead to them either having the sideways life or the life that led them to being called to the island by Jacob. The island represents the internal struggle that the characters have over this decision and whether it was the right one. Each person had to come to a realization of overcoming his/her problem. For example Jack needed to "let it go", Sawyer needed to understand that it wasn't his fault, and Claire needed to have faith that she would be a good mother. Once they were able to overcome their problems, and they encountered someone who significantly helped them do this during their internal struggle (i.e. Kate helping Claire become a mother), then they remembered the internal struggle and were able to be at peace with the decisions they made." So you see, when they had the 'flashes' of their lives on the island they were realizing that they had been redeemed as a result of not giving up on the internal struggle. The people who gave up and weren't redeemed gave up on the struggle because it was too hard. They chose the easy way out.
4. Jacob brought them all to the island to prove that some people could be redeemed. Remember MiB said that all men were evil and only came to destroy, but Jacob told him that wasn't true. He was using them as a way to prove his point. While MiB was correct in that some people chose to only serve their own purposes and take the easy way out of life's struggles, Jacob in the end won because some of them chose to instead fight through and accept redemption. As Stefanie said "thus Jacob wins. Game. Set. Match."
5. The ending scene of Jack's eye closing was the best bit of cinematic perfection I've seen in a long time. I can't think of a better way to end that show. I do have to say that it would not have been as fulfilling if I hadn't seen Sawyer and Juliet, Charlie and Claire and Shannon and Sayid find each other again, but it really was a perfect ending. They answered just enough questions to bring it to a close, didn't answer all of them so as always left it up to the audience to decide what happened, and closed at the exact spot as it opened but with so much that happened in between. Jack was the last person to accept his redemption, realize he could live in the community without taking control of it, and internalize his personal struggle. And when he did they were all their with him for his father's funeral. I actually think the fact that a lot of people at first didn't like the finale but that it's growing on them is a testament to it being the right ending. There was not a character on that show that I didn't hate and love at some point. They killed off characters you never thought they would, took crazy turns that didn't make sense but eventually came together, and half the time you were pissed off, confused, and happy with what was happening all at the same time. Why end it any different? In my opinion if you didn't like the finale you didn't really get LOST.
As seen in the fact Stefanie and I could talk about this for 4 1/2 hours on the way down here I could go on all day with the details, but I think that hits on the major points. So, as one of those text messages they showed during the pre-show said: Thanks a lot LOST, now I have to get a real life :)
